GLOSSARY 5. HE DEMEANED HIMSELF GREATLY—­

GLOSSARY 6. DUTY FOWLS, DUTY TURKEYS, AND DUTY GEESE.—­

In many leases in Ireland, tenants were formerly bound
to supply an inordinate quantity of poultry to their
landlords. The Editor knew of thirty turkeys
being reserved in one lease of a small farm.

GLOSSARY 7. ENGLISH TENANTS.—­

An English tenant does not mean a tenant who is an
Englishman, but a tenant who pays his rent the day
that it is due. It is a common prejudice in Ireland,
amongst the poorer classes of people, to believe that
all tenants in England pay their rents on the very
day when they become due. An Irishman, when he
goes to take a farm, if he wants to prove to his landlord
that he is a substantial man, offers to become an
Englishtenant. If a tenant disobliges
his landlord by voting against him, or against his
opinion, at an election, the tenant is immediately
informed by the agent that he must become an Englishtenant. This threat does not imply that
he is to change his language or his country, but that
he must pay all the arrear of rent which he owes, and
that he must thenceforward pay his rent on that day
when it becomes due.

GLOSSARY 8. CANTING—­

Does not mean talking or writing hypocritical nonsense,
but selling substantially by auction.

GLOSSARY 9. DUTY WORK.—­

It was formerly common in Ireland to insert clauses
in leases, binding tenants to furnish their landlords
with labourers and horses for several days in the
year. Much petty tyranny and oppression have resulted
from this feudal custom. Whenever a poor man
disobliged his landlord, the agent sent to him for
his duty work; and Thady does not exaggerate when
he says, that the tenants were often called from their
own work to do that of their landlord. Thus the
very means of earning their rent were taken from them:
whilst they were getting home their landlord’s
harvest, their own was often ruined, and yet their
rents were expected to be paid as punctually as if
their time had been at their own disposal. This
appears the height of absurd injustice.

In Esthonia, amongst the poor Sclavonian race of peasant
slaves, they pay tributes to their lords, not under
the name of duty work, duty geese, duty turkeys, etc.,
but under the name of RIGHTEOUSNESSES. The following
ballad is a curious specimen of Esthonian poetry:—­

This is the cause that
the country is ruined,
And the straw of the
thatch is eaten away,
The gentry are come
to live in the land—­
Chimneys between the
village,
And the proprietor upon